Opponents say the proposed project, shown in architect's illustrations, would wall off public sight lines. Supporters counter that it would include public space and amenities.

Photo: Skidmore Owings And Merrill

Opponents say the proposed project, shown in architect's...

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The proposed 8 Washington project would replace a parking lot and health club with a 12-story condominium building, a rebuilt health club and a new privately maintained park along the Embarcadero. This view shows the new triangular park, with existing buildings on the right.

Proposition B on the Nov. 5 ballot is a developer's attempt to make the November election the last chance for neighbors and environmentalists to block the 8 Washington St. condominium project on the city's waterfront.

"Prop. B puts the whole project in front of the voters," said David Beltran, who is running the campaign. "For the past seven years, opponents have been using various tactics to disrupt the project, and this lets the voters have the final say."

It's a little more complicated than that. Developer Simon Snellgrove of Pacific Waterfront Partners didn't start the effort to put Prop. B on the ballot until opponents of his luxury condominium proposal collected enough signatures to qualify a referendum challenging the Board of Supervisors' June 2012 approval of the project. That referendum is Prop. C on the November ballot, in which a "yes" vote would affirm the project and the "no" vote recommended by opponents would overturn the board's action.

"Prop. B is just a developer wanting to write his own ticket," said Louise Renne, the former San Francisco supervisor and city attorney who's one of the leaders of the anti-8 Washington effort. The planned project "is just too big and too tall."

Even the names of the two main groups involved in the political fracas show that the upcoming election will be a duel between the two ballot measures.

Opponents of 8 Washington and its 134 very expensive condos are calling their effort No Wall on the Waterfront. They argue that the plan for five- and six-story buildings along the Embarcadero and others behind them rising to 136 feet along Drumm Street shatter the long-standing 84-foot waterfront height limit and close off public sight lines.

Supporters of the project, though, list their campaign group as Open Up the Waterfront, saying the condo development will eliminate a surface parking lot controlled by the port and a private tennis club now surrounded by more than 1,700 feet of 12-foot-high green fencing. It would add public open space, complete with wider walkways, new bike paths, sidewalk shops and open-air cafes.

"Prop. B will tear down the fence, unpave the parking lot and replace it with a new waterfront park and neighborhood housing," Mayor Ed Lee and former Mayor Gavin Newsom say in a ballot argument that will appear in the November voters' guide. "The plan is part of the larger revitalization of the waterfront and is the product of seven years of planning and over 100 community meetings."

Developer mandates

Prop. B creates a special-use district for the 3.2-acre site, "allowing a development project similar to the project approved by the city in 2012." It would allow the over-the-limit height increases and construction of the 327-space underground parking garage that city planners and the supervisors already have OKd, and commit the developer to meet the various requirements for design, affordable housing subsidies, and payments to the city and port that were part of the final agreement on the 8 Washington development.

Even if voters back Prop. C, which would let the board's original approval of 8 Washington stand,"the opponents could come back and use something else to try and stop the project," Beltran said. Prop. B would block that by letting San Franciscans put the benefits and scope of the project into law.

But creating this type of special-use district for one developer's project is something that's new for San Francisco, Renne said. The wording of the measure could make it tougher for the city to regulate the construction and permitting details of the project and allow the developer to get around some of the promises he made to the city and the port.

"If the people fall for this one, I feel sorry for the city," she said.

But city officials, including John Rahaim, the city's planning director, and city Controller Ben Rosenfield, have said in public statements that they don't believe Prop. B would make it harder to oversee the project or threaten city revenue from the development.

Pitching the benefits

Prop. B "would enhance port property and the urban fabric of the waterfront," Monique Moyer, the city's port director, said in an analysis of the measure for the city elections department. It would both enhance the waterfront and "generate significant economic benefits for the city."

If both measures pass, the proposition that has the most votes is supposed to prevail, but in all likelihood would lead to more legal challenges.